Change-Point Detection for Financial Regimes

Purpose

Comprehensive guide for detecting regime changes in financial time-series using Gaussian Process change-point detection (GP-CPD), essential for segmenting markets into stationary periods and improving trading strategies.

When to Use

Activate this skill when:

• Segmenting time-series into distinct regimes
• Detecting structural breaks or market transitions
• Constructing context sets for few-shot learning
• Identifying momentum crashes or reversals
• Analyzing volatility regime changes
• Building regime-aware trading models

Core Concepts

1. What is a Regime Change?

A regime change (or change-point) is a point in time where the statistical properties of a time-series shift significantly.

Examples in Finance:

• 2020 COVID-19: Transition from bull market to extreme volatility
• 2008 Financial Crisis: Shift to high correlation and volatility
• 2022 Russia-Ukraine: Commodity market disruption
• Rate Hiking Cycles: Change in interest rate sensitivity

Why Detect Them?

• Momentum strategies suffer during regime transitions ("momentum crashes")
• Different regimes require different trading approaches
• Context sets with clean regime segments improve few-shot learning by 11.3%

2. Gaussian Process Basics

A Gaussian Process defines a distribution over functions:

# GP is fully specified by mean and covariance functions
y ~ GP(μ(x), k(x, x'))

where:
- μ(x): mean function (often 0)
- k(x, x'): covariance (kernel) function

Matérn 3/2 Kernel (recommended for financial data):

k(r) = σ² * (1 + √3*r/ℓ) * exp(-√3*r/ℓ)

where:
- r = |x1 - x2|
- ℓ: length_scale (how quickly correlation decays)
- σ²: variance (overall scale)

Properties:

• Once differentiable (smoother than OU process)
• Not infinitely smooth (realistic for financial data)
• Better than RBF for capturing financial dynamics

See IMPLEMENTATION.md for kernel implementations.

3. Change-Point Kernel

The Change-Point (CP) kernel models a transition between two GPs:

k_CP(x1, x2) = σ(x1) * σ(x2) * k1(x1, x2)
             + (1-σ(x1)) * (1-σ(x2)) * k2(x1, x2)

where σ(x) = sigmoid((x - t_cp) / sigma) is transition function

Key Insight:

• If there's a change-point, CP kernel fits better than single Matérn kernel
• We can detect this by comparing marginal likelihoods!

See IMPLEMENTATION.md for code.

4. GP-CPD Algorithm

Compare two models:

1. Matérn (M): No change-point, single stationary GP
2. Change-Point (C): Change-point exists at time t_cp

Detection Steps:

1. Fit GP with Matérn kernel → compute L_M
2. Fit GP with Change-Point kernel → compute L_C (optimize t_cp)
3. Compare: severity = L_C / (L_M + L_C)
4. If severity ≥ threshold, declare change-point

Severity Interpretation:

• severity = 0.5: No evidence for change-point (models equally good)
• severity = 0.9: Strong evidence for change-point
• severity = 0.95: Very strong evidence for change-point

See IMPLEMENTATION.md for full algorithm.

5. Segmentation Algorithm

Recursively apply GP-CPD to segment entire time-series:

Process:

1. Start from end of series
2. Check lookback window for change-point
3. If detected and severity ≥ threshold:
   • Mark regime from change-point to current end
   • Move before change-point and repeat
4. If not detected:
   • Move back one time step
   • Enforce max regime length constraint
5. Continue until start of series

Constraints:

• min_length: Minimum regime length (typically 5 days)
• max_length: Maximum regime length (21 or 63 days)

See IMPLEMENTATION.md for implementation.

6. Using CPD for Context Sets

Create high-quality context sets for few-shot learning:

Strategy:

1. Segment each asset's history with CPD
2. Sample random regime segments as context
3. Ensure all context is before target_time (causality)

Performance Impact (from X-Trend paper):

• Random context: Sharpe = 2.38
• CPD context: Sharpe = 2.70
• Improvement: +11.3%

Why It Works:

• Clean regime segments are more informative
• Avoids mixing multiple market states in one context
• Better pattern matching via cross-attention
• Reduces noise in transferred knowledge

See IMPLEMENTATION.md for code.

Hyperparameter Selection

Lookback Window

lookback_window (ℓ_lbw):
- 21 days (1 month): Good balance of speed and robustness
- 63 days (3 months): More robust but slower detection
- Trade-off: Shorter = faster detection, Longer = less noise

Severity Threshold

threshold (ν):
- 0.90: Detect most regime changes (more sensitive)
- 0.95: Detect only strong regime changes (more specific)
- 0.99: Very conservative (few, strong changes only)

Recommendation:
- For max_length = 21: Use ν = 0.90
- For max_length = 63: Use ν = 0.95

Segment Length Constraints

min_length = 5:  # Minimum 5 days for meaningful regime
max_length = 21 or 63:
    - 21 (1-month): Shorter, more granular regimes
    - 63 (3-month): Longer, more stable regimes

Practical Usage

Basic CPD Detection

from sklearn.gaussian_process import GaussianProcessRegressor
from sklearn.gaussian_process.kernels import Matern

class FinancialCPD:
    def __init__(self, lookback=21, threshold=0.9):
        self.lookback = lookback
        self.threshold = threshold

    def detect_changepoint(self, prices):
        """Detect change-point in price window."""
        gp_m, L_M = self.fit_matern_gp(prices)
        t_cp, L_C = self.fit_changepoint_gp(prices)

        severity = L_C / (L_M + L_C)

        if severity >= self.threshold:
            return t_cp, severity
        else:
            return None, severity

    def segment(self, prices, min_len=5, max_len=63):
        """Segment entire time-series into regimes."""
        # See IMPLEMENTATION.md for full code

See IMPLEMENTATION.md for complete implementation.

Visualization

def visualize_regimes(prices, regimes):
    """Plot time-series with colored regime segments."""
    # See IMPLEMENTATION.md for full visualization code

See IMPLEMENTATION.md for plotting code.

Common Use Cases

Use Case 1: Momentum Crash Detection

Identify regime changes that cause momentum losses:

• Market reverses rapidly (change-point detected)
• Existing position is wrong direction

See IMPLEMENTATION.md for implementation.

Use Case 2: Adaptive Strategy Selection

Choose trading strategy based on current regime characteristics:

• Trending regimes → Momentum strategies
• Mean-reverting regimes → Contrarian strategies
• High-volatility regimes → Risk-off strategies

See IMPLEMENTATION.md for code.

Best Practices

DO:

✅ Use Matérn 3/2 kernel for financial data (better than RBF or OU) ✅ Set reasonable lookback (21 days is good default) ✅ Enforce min/max lengths to avoid trivial or excessive regimes ✅ Validate on multiple assets to tune threshold ✅ Move past change-point to avoid corrupting next regime's representation ✅ Use for context construction in few-shot learning

DON'T:

❌ Don't use RBF kernel - too smooth for financial data ❌ Don't set lookback too small - noisy detections ❌ Don't set lookback too large - delayed detection ❌ Don't ignore severity - it indicates confidence ❌ Don't allow overlapping regimes - each point in one regime only

Performance Impact

Based on X-Trend paper results:

Few-Shot Learning:

• Random context: Sharpe = 2.38
• CPD context: Sharpe = 2.70
• Improvement: +11.3%

Why It Works:

• Clean regime segments are more informative
• Avoids mixing multiple market states in one context
• Better pattern matching via cross-attention
• Reduces noise in transferred knowledge

Implementation Checklist

When implementing GP-CPD:

• Install scikit-learn for GP support
• Implement Matérn 3/2 kernel
• Implement change-point kernel or two-GP approximation
• Calculate marginal likelihoods for both models
• Implement severity calculation: L_C / (L_M + L_C)
• Set appropriate threshold (0.90-0.95)
• Implement segmentation with min/max length constraints
• Add visualization for regime validation
• Integrate with context set construction
• Test on multiple assets and time periods

Related Skills

• few-shot-learning-finance - Using CPD for context construction
• financial-time-series - Returns and momentum factors to analyze
• x-trend-architecture - Attending over regime segments

Reference Files

• IMPLEMENTATION.md - Complete implementations including FinancialCPD class, kernels, segmentation, context construction, use cases, and visualization

References

• GP Change-Point Models (Saatçi, Turner, Rasmussen 2010)
• Sequential Bayesian Prediction (Garnett et al. 2010)
• Slow Momentum with Fast Reversion (Wood, Roberts, Zohren 2022)
• X-Trend: Few-Shot Learning Patterns (Wood et al. 2024)

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Last Updated: Based on X-Trend paper (March 2024) Skill Type: Domain Knowledge + Implementation Line Count: ~290 (under 500-line rule ✅)